(a) Technical Field
The present disclosure relates to an electronic device including a display device and a driver thereof.
(b) Discussion of Related Art
In recent years, as a substitute for large and heavy cathode ray tubes (CRTs), flat panel displays, such as organic light emitting diode (OLED) displays, plasma display panels (PDPs), and liquid crystal displays (LCDs) have been actively developed.
The PDPs display text or images using plasma generated by gas discharge. The organic light emitting diode displays display text or images using field emission of specific organic materials or polymers. In the liquid crystal display, an electric field is generated in a liquid crystal layer interposed between two display panels. The intensity of the electric field is adjusted to control transmittance of light that passes through the liquid crystal layer, thereby obtaining a desired image.
The flat display devices, such as a liquid crystal display or an organic light emitting diode display, include a display panel including pixels having switching elements and display signal lines, a gate driver that supplies gate signals to gate lines among the display signal lines so as to turn on/off the switching elements of the pixels, a gray voltage generator for generating a plurality of gray voltages, a data driver for selecting a voltage corresponding to image signals from the gray voltages as a data voltage and applying the data voltage to a data line among the display signal lines, and a signal controller for controlling the above elements.
In addition, electronic devices such as a mobile phone, a portable multimedia player (PMP), and a navigation device include the display device to display an operational state and an end result of the electronic device. The electronic device usually includes a microprocessor unit (MPU) corresponding to a central processing unit, and the display device also includes a driving chip for receiving image signals and control signals from the MPU to drive the display panel.
When static electricity is externally applied to the display device, an error can occur when the display device is driven, and a screen display error may be generated. Such a screen display error is acknowledged as a blackening effect in which no image is displayed on the screen. The blackening effect is generated because a voltage boosting is not appropriately performed in the driving chip of the display device, and a driving voltage is not appropriately generated. The above problem is referred to as electrostatic damage (ESD).